SISSIE
I
"Had any dinner?" Mr. Prohack asked his daughter.
"No."
"Aren't you hungry?"
"No, thanks."
Sissie seized the last remaining apple from the dessert-dish, and bit
into it with her beautiful and efficient teeth. She was slim, and rather
taller than necessary or than she desired to be. A pretty girl, dressed
in a short-skirted, short-sleeved, dark blue, pink-heightened frock that
seemed to combine usefulness with a decent perverse frivolity, and to
carry forward the expression of her face. She had bright brown hair. She
was perfectly mistress of the apple.
"Where's mother?"
"In bed with a headache."
"Didn't she have dinner with you?"
"She did not. And she doesn't want to be disturbed."
"Oh! I shan't disturb her, poor thing. I told her this afternoon she
would have one of her headaches."
"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "that's one of the most remarkable instances
of sound prophecy that I ever came across."
"Father, what's amusing you?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, something is. You've got your funny smile, and you were smiling
all to yourself when I came in."
"I was thinking. My right to think is almost the only right I possess
that hasn't yet been challenged in this house."
"Where's Charles?"
"Gone to Glasgow."
"Gone to _Glasgow_?"
"Yes."
"What, just now?"
"Ten minutes ago."
"Whatever has he gone to _Glasgow_ for?"
"I don't know,--any more than I know why you went out before dinner and
came back after dinner."
"Would you like to know why I went out?" Sissie spoke with sudden
ingratiatingness.
"No, not at all. But I should like to know why you went out without
telling anybody. When people are expected to dinner and fail to appear
they usually give notice of the failure."
"But, father, I told Machin."
"I said 'anybody.' Don't you know that the whole theory of the society
which you adorn is based on the assumption that Machin is nobody?"
"I was called away in a frightful hurry, and you and mother were
gossiping upstairs, and it's as much as one's life is worth to disturb
you two when you are together."
"Oh! That's news."
"Besides, I should have had to argue with mother, and you know what she
is."
"You flatter me. I don't even know what _you_ are, and you're elementary
compared to your mother."
"Anyhow, I'm glad mother's in bed with a headache. I came in here
trembling just now. Mother would have made such a tremendous fuss
although she's perfectly aware that it's not the slightest use making a
fuss.... Only makes me stupid and obstinate. Showers and showers of
questions there'd have been, whereas you haven't asked a single one."
"Yes, you're rather upset by my lack of curiosity. But let me just point
out that it is not consistent with my paternal duty to sit here and
listen to you slanging your mother. As a daughter you have vast
privileges, but you mustn't presume on them. There are some things I
couldn't stand from any woman without protest."
"But you must admit that mother _is_ a bit awful when she breaks loose."
"No. I've never known your mother awful, or even a bit awful."
"You aren't being intellectually honest, dad."
"I am."
"Ah! Well, of course she only shows her best side to _you_."
"She has no other side. In that sense she is certainly one-sided. Here!
Have another." Mr. Prohack took the apple from his pocket, and threw it
across the table to Sissie, who caught it.
II
Mr. Prohack was extremely happy; and Sissie too, in so far as concerned
the chat with her father, was extremely happy. They adored each other,
and they adored the awful woman laid low with a headache. Sissie's hat
and cloak, which she had dropped carelessly on a chair, slipped to the
floor, the hat carried away by the cloak. Mr. Prohack rose and picked
them up, took them out of the room, and returned.
"So now you've straightened up, and you're pleased with yourself,"
observed Sissie.
"So now," said he. "Perhaps I may turn on my curiosity tap."
"Don't," said Sissie. "I'm very gloomy. I'm very disappointed. I might
burst into tears at any moment.... Yes, I'm not joking."
"Out with it."
"Oh, it's nothing! It's only that I saw a chance of making some money
and it hasn't come off."
"But what do you want to make money for?"
"I like that. Hasn't mother been telling me off and on all day that
something will have to be done?"
"Done about what?"
"About economy, naturally." Sissie spoke rather sharply.
"But you don't mean your mother has spent the day in urging you to go
forth and earn money!"
"Of course she hasn't, father. How absurd you are! You know very well
mother would hate the idea of me earning money. Hate it! But I mean to
earn some. Surely it's much better to bring more money in than to pinch
and scrape. I loathe pinching and scraping."
"It's a sound loathing."
"And I thought I'd got hold of a scheme. But it's too big. I have fifty
pounds odd of my own, but what use is fifty pounds when a hundred's
needed? It's all off and I'm in the last stage of depression."
She threw away the core of the second apple.
"Is that port? I'll have some."
"So that you're short of fifty pounds?" said Mr. Prohack, obediently
pouring out the port--but only half a glass. "Well, I might be able to
let you have fifty pounds myself, if you would deign to accept it."
Sissie cried compassionately: "But you haven't got a cent, dad!"
"Oh! Haven't I? Did your mother tell you that?"
"Well, she didn't exactly say so."
"I should hope not! And allow me to inform you, my girl, that in
accusing me of not having a cent you're being guilty of the worst
possible taste. Children should always assume that their fathers have
mysterious stores of money, and that nothing is beyond their resources,
and if they don't rise to every demand it's only because in their
inscrutable wisdom they deem it better not to. Or it may be from mere
cussedness."
"Yes," said Sissie. "That's what I used to think when I was young. But
I've looked up your salary in _Whitaker's Almanac_."
"It was very improper of you. However, nothing is secret in these days,
and so I don't mind telling you that I've backed a winner to-day--not
to-day, but some little time since--and I can if necessary and agreeable
let you have fifty pounds."
Mr. Prohack as it were shook his crest in plenary contentment. He had
the same sensation of creativeness as he had had a while earlier with
his son,--a godlike sensation. And he was delighted with his girl. She
was so young and so old. And her efforts to play the woman of the world
with him were so comic and so touching. Only two or three years since
she had been driving a motor-van in order to defeat the Germans. She had
received twenty-eight shillings a week for six days of from twelve to
fourteen hours. She would leave the house at eight and come back at
eight, nine, or ten. And on her return, pale enough, she would laugh and
say she had had her dinner and would go to bed. But she had not had her
dinner. She was simply too tired and nervously exasperated to eat. And
she would lie in bed and tremble and cry quietly from fatigue. She did
not know that her parents knew these details. The cook, her confidante,
had told them, much later. And Mr. Prohack had decreed that Sissie must
never know that they knew. She had stuck to the task during a whole
winter, skidding on glassy asphalt, slimy wood, and slithery stone-setts
in the East End, and had met with but one accident, a minor affair. The
experience seemed to have had no permanent effect on her, but it had had
a permanent effect on her father's attitude towards her,--her mother had
always strongly objected to what she called the "episode," had shown
only relief when it concluded, and had awarded no merit for it.
"Can you definitely promise me fifty pounds, dad?" Sissie asked quietly.
Mr. Prohack made no articulate answer. His reply was to take out his
cheque-book and his fountain-pen and fill in a cheque to _Miss Sissie
Prohack or order_. He saw no just reason for differentiating between
the sexes in his offspring. He had given a cheque to Charlie; he gave
one to Sissie.
"Then you aren't absolutely stone-broke," said Sissie, smiling.
"I should not so describe myself."
"It's just like mother," she murmured, the smile fading.
Mr. Prohack raised a sternly deprecating hand. "Enough."
"But don't you want to know what I want the money for?" Sissie demanded.
"No!... Ha-ha!"
"Then I shall tell you. The fact is I must tell you."
* * * * *
III
"I've decided to teach dancing," said Sissie, beginning again nervously,
as her father kept a notable silence.
"I thought you weren't so very keen on dancing."
"I'm not; but perhaps that's because I don't care much for the new
fashion of dancing a whole evening with the same man. Still the point is
that I'm a very fine dancer. Even Charlie will tell you that."
"But I thought that all the principal streets in London were full of
dancing academies at the present time, chiefly for the instruction of
aged gentlemen."
"I don't know anything about that," Sissie replied seriously. "What I do
know is that now I can find a hundred pounds, I have a ripping chance of
taking over a studio--at least part of one; and it's got quite a big
connection already,--in fact pupils are being turned away."
"And this is all you can think of!" protested Mr. Prohack with
melancholy. "We are living on the edge of a volcano--the country is, I
mean--and your share in the country's work is to teach the citizens to
dance!"
"Well," said Sissie. "They'll dance anyhow, and so they may as well
learn to dance properly. And what else can I do? Have you had me taught
to do anything else? You and mother have brought me up to be perfectly
useless except as the wife of a rich man. That's what you've done, and
you can't deny it."
"Once," said Mr. Prohack. "You very nobly drove a van."
"Yes, I did. But no thanks to you and mother. Why, I had even to learn
to drive in secret, lest you should stop me! And I can tell you one
thing--if I was to start driving a van now I should probably get mobbed
in the streets. All the men have a horrid grudge against us girls who
did their work in the war. If we want to get a job in these days we
jolly well have to conceal the fact that we were in the W.A.A.C. or in
anything at all during the war. They won't look at us if they find out
that. Our reward! However, I don't want to drive a van. I want to teach
dancing. It's not so dirty and it pays better. And if people feel like
dancing, why shouldn't they dance? Come now, dad, be reasonable."
"That's asking a lot from any human being, and especially from a
parent."
"Well, have you got any argument against what I say?"
"I prefer not to argue."
"That's because you can't."
"It is. It is. But what is this wonderful chance you've got?"
"It's that studio where Charlie and I went last night, at Putney."
"At _Putney_?"
"Well, why not Putney? They have a gala night every other week, you
know. It belongs to Viola Ridle. Viola's going to get married and live
in Edinburgh, and she's selling it. And Eliza asked me if I'd join her
in taking it over. Eliza telephoned me about it to-night, and so I
rushed across the Park to see her. But Viola's asking a hundred pounds
premium and a hundred for the fittings, and very cheap it is too. In
fact Viola's a fool, _I_ think, but then she's fond of Eliza."
"Now, Eliza? Is that Eliza Brating, or am I getting mixed up?"
"Yes, it's Eliza Brating."
"Ah!"
"You needn't be so stuffy, dad, because her father's only a
second-division clerk at the Treasury."
"Oh, I'm not. It was only this morning that I was saying to Mr. Hunter
that we must always remember that second-division clerks are also God's
creatures."
"Father, you're disgusting."
"Don't say that, my child. At my age one needs encouragement, not abuse.
And I'm glad to be able to tell you that there is no longer any
necessity either for you to earn money or to pinch and scrape.
Satisfactory arrangements have been made...."
"Really? Well, that's splendid. But of course it won't make any
difference to me. There may be no necessity so far as you're concerned.
But there's my inward necessity. I've got to be independent. It wouldn't
make any difference if you had an income of ten thousand a year."
Mr. Prohack blenched guiltily.
"Er--er--what was I going to say? Oh, yes,--where's this Eliza of yours
got her hundred pounds from?"
"I don't know. It's no business of mine."
"But do you insist--shall you--insist on introductions from your
pupils?"
"Father, how you do chop about! No, naturally we shan't insist on
introductions."
"Then any man can come for lessons?"
"Certainly. Provided he wears evening-dress on gala nights, and pays the
fees and behaves properly. Viola says some of them prefer afternoon
lessons because they haven't got any evening-dress."
"If I were you I shouldn't rush at it," said Mr. Prohack.
"But we must rush at it--or lose it. And I've no intention of losing it.
Viola has to make her arrangements at once."
"I wonder what your mother will say when you ask her."
"I shan't ask her. I shall tell her. Nobody can decide this thing for
me. I have to decide it for myself, and I've decided it. As for what
mother says--" Sissie frowned and then smiled, "that's your affair."
"My affair!" Mr. Prohack exclaimed in real alarm. "What on earth do you
mean?"
"Well, you and she are so thick together. You're got to live with her. I
haven't got to live with her."
"I ask you, what on earth _do_ you mean?"
"But surely you've understood, father, that I shall have to live at the
studio. Somebody has to be on the spot, and there are two bedrooms. But
of course you'll be able to put all that right with mother, dad. You'll
do it for your own sake; but a bit for mine, too." She giggled
nervously, ran round the table and kissed her parent. "I'm frightfully
obliged for the fifty pounds," she said. "You and the mater will be
fearfully happy together soon if Charlie doesn't come back. Ta-ta! I
must be off now."
"Where?"
"To Eliza's of course. We shall probably go straight down to Putney
together and see Viola and fix everything up. I know Viola's had at
least one other good offer. I may sleep at the studio. If not, at
Eliza's. Anyhow it will be too late for me to come back here."
"I absolutely forbid you to go off like this."
"Yes, do, father. You forbid for all you're worth if it gives you any
pleasure. But it won't be much use unless you can carry me upstairs and
lock me in my room. Oh! Father, you are a great pretender. You know
perfectly well you're delighted with me."
"Indeed I'm not! I suppose you'll have the decency to see your mother
before you go?"
"What! And wake her! You said she wasn't to be disturbed 'on any
account.'"
"I deny that I said 'on any account.'"
"I shouldn't dream of disturbing her. And you'll tell her so much better
than I could. You can do what you like with her."
IV
"Where's my dessert?" demanded Mrs. Prohack, anxiously and resentfully,
when her husband at length reached the bedroom. "I'm dying of hunger,
and I've got a real headache now. Oh! Arthur how absurd all this is! At
least it would be if I wasn't so hungry."
"Sissie ate all the dessert," Mr. Prohack answered timidly. He no longer
felt triumphant, careless and free. Indeed for some minutes he had
practically forgotten that he had inherited ten thousand a year. "The
child ate it every bit, so I couldn't bring any. Shall I ring for
something else?"
"And why," Mrs. Prohack continued, "why have you been so long? And
what's all this business of taxis rushing up to the door all the
evening?"
"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, ignoring her gross exaggeration of the truth
as to the taxis. "I'd better tell you at once. Charlie's gone to Glasgow
on his own business and Sissie's just run down to Viola Ridle's studio
about a new scheme of some kind that she's thinking of. For the moment
we're alone in the world."
"It's always the same," she remarked with indignation, when with forced
facetiousness he had given her an extremely imperfect and bowdlerized
account of his evening. "It's always the same. As soon as I'm laid up in
bed, everything goes wrong. My poor boy, I cannot imagine what you've
been doing. I suppose I'm very silly, but I _can't_ understand it."
Nor could Mr. Prohack himself, now that he was in the sane conjugal
atmosphere of the bedroom.